Chasing Shadows
by Joker88
Summary: The Joker needs some entertainment. Batsy hasn't shown up tonight. Oh dear what can he do? Jayden Cresley picked the wrong person to pickpocket. Read and Review!


_**Sorry that I've been gone for so long. But please review? I don't care if you haven't even read it. I will write fuzzy poems on flowers if you don't respond. Which would you rather have? Gruesome joker or sunlight on rose petals? On to the extremely long story. **_

Jayden Cresley was an orphan boy. One of the many on Gotham's side streets. A little old, but that showed how resourceful he was. To have avoided the cops and the unwanted attention of Gotham's criminal creeps, pimps, and usual night stalkers was a feat almost unheard of in the Black Cities underground. Jayden had no friends, obviously no family and no gang. He looked after his own. He was his own.

You had to be in a gang when you were on the streets. It was for protection and belonging. And the odd buck you made. But Jayden saw groups as a weakness. A burden. They would drag you down and stay you from your life.

He was alone. But that was how he liked it. How it was supposed to be. Because Jayden had The Plan. He would pickpocket twelve people a day. Not in the Narrows. Never in the Narrows, because no one in the Narrows had a dime on them. Not if they wanted to live with all their limbs.

So Jayden targeted the rich in the uptown area. He scraped by with thirty dollars a week. Always picking the businessmen, the wealthy, the powerful. If they were rich, they paid up the mob to protect their homes and themselves. They didn't expect thievery. To be caught stealing from a mob client would have you castrated on the town hall steps.

But Jayden never got caught, never. Because he wasn't on the police radar, which was hard. But even harder was the fact that he didn't show up on the criminal radar. He didn't exist. As far as anyone was concerned, Jayden was a ghost.

All in The Plan. According to The Plan. If he stole from twelve people a day. In five years he would have enough money to move to the country, start a new life. Be a new person. A good prson. An upstanding citizen who would always pay his taxes.

Five years if he didn't eat, drink or sleep on a bed.

If he didn't get caught.

If he was alive in five years.

It started out as a normal day for Jayden. The day everything went wrong. He woke up, ate whatever he found wherever he found it. And looked at the street for his first target.

It was late in the day, but the streets were still ripe. What if he could get out of the city in four years? Jayden picked his next target. A man of medium height in a tailored gray suit. He would do just fine.

From the back his prey looked like any other man in the city. Admittedly the style of clothing was a bit out of fashion and he was wearing his collar a little high for a Gotham spring.

And who the hell wears a hat on the streets?

But if this guy was a little out of mode, it wasn't Jayden's problem. He snuck up behind the target, his mind going still. After the hit, there would be an exhilarating rush and the paranoid feeling that the target would be chasing him, but for now it was like the calm before the storm. He was totally focused. Aware of him movements and the movements around him.

Slowing his breathing and heart rate, Jayden fluidly slipped his hand into his targets coat pocket, deftly maneuvering around the man's movements. He felt something hard meet his fingertips but was forced to withdraw his searching hand as a large woman in a vomit green dress came barreling up the sidewalk.

Jayden got pushed aside as the woman bumped into him, almost thrust to the ground, but he found his balance and looked toward his target again.

The man had swung around the woman, slipping past her on the crowded streets. And as Jayden watched, he saw what he had missed the first time around. The man was dancing around everyone, moving with fluid grace, never touching anyone, always one step ahead ahead of the people around him. And he was moving against the rush. Sidestepping , leaning into doorways to avoid flying handbags and small children.

Jayden snapped back into the present as he realized that stranger was getting away from him. Jayden followed him, trying to copy his elegant-if a little strange-ballet.

It was hopeless, but he wasn't giving up just yet. It was a challenge. And he liked the idea of catching up and finding out just what the contents of this strange man's pockets were.

It felt like hours by the time he had finally drawn up beside his target again. Jayden still couldn't see his face in the deepening shadows.

He stepped back again and slid his hand back into the pocket.

he had it. Whatever 'it' was. Jayden didn't look at it or his target but continued past him, elbowing people out of my way.

He reached a narrow alley, dumpsters and broken furniture littered the smelly slum.

he brought out the the object he had stolen. It took him a second to realize what he was looking at.

A knife.

A bloodstained knife.

"Jesus!" He dropped the steel and backed away. It clattered on the grimy concrete. He was still shaking. Jayden wasn't that good around blood. Most of the time he fainted. Not that he hadn't seen a lot of blood, but it still made him queasy.

He finally caught up my breath and got the courage to approach the gleaming metal again.

Kneeling down he picked up the blade gingerly, and held it up to the fading light. It was beautiful, a deadly work of art. There was a serrated edge from the bottom to about two inches from the tip.

It was a long knife, one of the longest Jayden had ever seen. It was so... so... venomous. The serrated edge had been turned backwards in little wave-like hooks. There was a small engraving on the blade, it looked a little like a Chinese symbol. Jayden squinted at it, and rubbed his shirt over the blade trying to clean the dried brown drops from the surface so he could see better.

At last he could make it out. There was a figure doing a cartwheel, there were little engraved bells on the hat. And the figure was grinning. In the background there was the edges of the letter 'J' with little ivy leaves sprouting out of it. The Joker's so-called crest.

Jayden threw the knife as far away from him as he could. It hit an alley wall. And it hung quivering in the mortar. "The Joker?! Shit. Dammit. Fuck. _Christ!_" He kicked the dumpster.

"The _Joker?_" Jayden peered at the knife again. But the engraving hadn't changed. "_The _Joker?"

He was hyperventilating. The mob he could handle, but the Joker, That was something else entirely. Nobody was off the Joker's radar. The clown could find a pin in a haystack if he had enough time. Ruthless didn't even begin to cover it.

Jayden collapsed against the wall. He could just leave the knife here. His fingerprints wouldn't show up. He could disappear again. Become one with a wall. Hide in the deepest hole he could find.

Jayden buried his head in the hands. He had just robbed one of the Joker's henchmen. Robbed him of one of the Joker's favorite instruments. Something he would undoubtedly come looking for.

"Shit, the Joker."

"The one and only."

Jayden bolted upright, the strangely garbed man was standing in front of him, effectively blocking him from the street.

Jayden scrabbled to his feet, trying desperately not to cry for mercy or scream for help. "Look, it was just-I was only... please, I didn't mean... I didn't-I didn't know." He was trying to push word ahead of each other. How was he going to get out of this one? He had seen Jayden's face, he could tell the Joker. Worse he could bring him to the Joker.

The man said nothing, only bent to inspect the knife, buried in the alley wall. "That could blunt the knife you know. I'm going to have to sharpen it." He gently pried the knife out and stroked it lovingly.

It was then that the young thief realized who he was staring at. "Oh, _shit._"

The Joker tutted disapprovingly. "Come now, we might have to wash your mouth out."

But Jayden was backing away from him, one hand held up to his face, covering his mouth.

The Joker was still staring at the knife, reassuring himself that it was fine. Without taking his eyes off that shining length he spoke again in that drawling tone. "Oh, don't go. We have barely gotten to know each other."

He looked up, and his grin was mirrored on the knife. It was almost completely dark now. Jayden could feel his heart thundering in his ears. He was going to die. There was only one option now and he took it.

_Run. _

And so he ran, skidding on wet newspapers and jumping over the broken remains of dirty furniture. He dared not look behind him and he sprinted with his back arched, waiting for the sharp pain of a thrown knife. But it never came.

He ran for what seemed like hours and then when he thought he would never be able to run one more step I walked, panting my heart in my mouth jumping at the echo of a footstep.

At last he could walk without whipping his head around to look at the streets behind himself. But he still had the jitters. He shook his head vigorously. He had to get out of town now. The Joker wasn't forgiving.

Even a small offense such a pickpocket taking something of his, was unthinkable. There were horror stories on the streets about what happened to if you crossed the Joker. One man accidentally took a box of orange tic-tacs from him and the poor sod lost three fingers and his right eye in less than a minute. And then it turns out the Joker doesn't even eat sweets. Still, that's a small plastic box of candy. This was one of his personal knives. His signature.

But Jayden had escaped from him. That had to be worth some kind of medal. Still, it hadn't left Jayden completely without scars. It would take days, even months to forget that he had actually run into the number one mass-murderer and criminal mastermind. Jesus his legs were shaking, and the night was getting cold.

Jayden let his breath go as he stared up at the moon, and he felt his shoulders sag. His breath was still quick. But he slowed it down and at the same time his heart began to do the same thing.

_Calm, calm. There is no one behind you. You're fine. Calm._

Still, he felt paranoid. He whipped his head around, the streets were empty. Yellow street lamps sent distorted shadows up the narrow buildings making everything gold and black. It was like a painted picture. Everything was silent. Still. Not even a breeze ruffled the garbage bags that lay torn open and littered upon the sidewalk.

_Calm, You're fine. Calm._

Jayden froze. Behind him, came a soft click like a boot of concrete. He closed his eyes and stopped breathing. Perhaps he had imagined it?

"There is no one behind me." He said out loud, testing his courage. His voice came out in a squeak. He tried again. "There is nobody behind me."

It came out stronger and he drew bravery from the spoken words.

"You keep telling yourself that." It was barely a whisper, Jayden could have imagined it. But he whipped around. No one was there. He looked down.

A gray hat hat innocently on the sidewalk, it's fabric dented and scuffed but it was an old cut. An odd cut.

The hat of the man who he had followed that afternoon.

There was another sound, like a low hum and a slight cough, like a car starting up. It was soft, at the back of the mind.

Jayden spun around whipping his head around in circles as he tried to find the souce of the noise.

It grew louder and louder, echoing from each building. Rising to a crescendo. Laughter.

That was when Jayden started running again.

There was nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide, the laughter followed him, And suddenly the evening wasn't cold or calm or in shades of gold and black.

It was red and white, blinding, to hot and cold at the same time, freezing and burning. And still the laughter continued. Footsteps were everywhere. Shadows cavorted across doorways, leaping and skipping from alleys and windows, each new source of light adding another to the fray until there were hundreds of running figures cast upon the walls and apartment buildings. And every now and again Jayden would catch a glance of a reeling purple figure frolicking in the shadows chasing the shadows, slapping his hand across the lampposts, making a ringing bell tone.

The Joker kept constant pace with Jayden always on the other side of the street, his scarred face swinging in and out of the darkness with mad glee.

He spun and twirled, his purple coattails thrashing out behind him. Each pirouette going faster and faster with Jayden's breathless screams of terror.

Jayden wasn't faring too well. He was exhausted, panicked and about to throw up from a combination of both.

It went on and on like some kind of heathen dance.

The images spun in his head, laughter, wraiths, movement, scars, knives, hats, light, darkness, black, white. It blurred, each running into each other, spinning, winding, screaming...

Jayden collapsed onto the concrete, still screaming, he couldn't stop long enough to breathe. Instead he arched his back off the side-walk, his face turning red and tears of terror burning behind his eyelids.

Spots of color, blue and green appeared on his vision, he couldn't scream anymore, he didn't have enough oxygen in his lungs, instead his mouth was still open in a silent howl.

Dimly he heard and felt the Joker collapse next to him, still chuckling. Jayden's eyes were still opened wide, pointing up at the sky, his mouth still opened in a scream that no one would hear.

"Oh, boy." The Joker sat up, on the edge of Jayden's vision, wiping his eyes on the back of one gloved hand. "I haven't had that much fun since... yesterday."

Red streaks crept up into the edges of Jayden's vision. Shouldn't he have blacked out by now? His hands clutched at his throat bent into claws. Failing eyes rolled back into his head. His heart rate hadn't slowed, and he didn't have enough air to keep it going. He was going to die.

Die of fear.

Suddenly he felt a hand slap down on his chest, and it was painful. He took a long gasping breath, and then another, dragging it through into his lungs. Breathing his throat raw. The cold air bit painfully but It felt to good at the moment.

And then the dizziness came.

It felt as though his head were detached from his neck, spinning. Vaguely from somewhere on his left came the tone that had followed him in his fear.

"You wanna' do it again? I'll give you a head start." He hauled Jayden up. And stared at the reeling teenager.

Jayden buckled onto the pavement again. The Joker looked down with his hands on his hips. His mutilated mouth even more disfigured as he frowned down on the youth.

"Oh don't get all boring on me now."

Jayden didn't answer, Just lay on the walkway, panting. He had a nose-bleed, it had spread all over his face, even into his mouth. Metallic and salty.

The Joker sat cross-legged beside him and gazed at the empty street.

"I suppose you're right. Second time 'round just wouldn't be the same." He sighed and stretched out his legs and propped himself up on his elbows.

"It's a lovely night. Gotham is just so... _liberating_." He looked down a Jayden again and patted his shoulder consolingly.

"Don't worry, we'll have you in shape in no time at all."

Jayden struggled weekly to his knees. The Joker smelled like old leather, sweat and must make-up. It was a dry smell. Pleasant, but alien.

The Joker giggled again. "I suppose I'll have to kill you now."

Jayden just stared at him. He was too tired to do anything.

"Oh, but you were a nice distraction. Batsy hasn't turned up tonight." He looked gloomy. "I hate being stood up."

He pulled out the wicked knife and fingered the tip.

Jayden started to crawl away started to crawl away.

Purple boots appeared on the pavement in front of him.

"Don't do that."

He was pulled up by his hair. He hung limply as The Joker drew little curls onto the soft skin of my neck with his knife. "How would you like to die, little thief?"

Jayden gazed emptily up at him.

"You now there's a right little gusher above your ear? Dead in ten minutes. Personally I've only ever seen it done once... The blood gets into your ear drum and goes straight to your sinuses."

He peered down at me again. "And then your one eye turns the brightest red. It's a very nice shade. They should make a lipstick in that color."

He tapped the knife against his scars. "But you see, I'm not exactly sure where the gusher would be situated. I mean is it here?"

He stabbed Jayden's left ear and the boy shrieked.

He could make all the noise that he wanted, nobody would investigate screams at night, especially in this part of Gotham.

"Nope that wasn't it.. maybe here?..."

_**I made all that stuff up about the gusher ear sinus, drum, bright red eye thing. I actually have no idea where that came from. I'm really tired... So yeah.. review? Please? You read this far right? (And how far it was) I just really didn't want to kill the character, but I couldn't see how else to end it. Again REVIEW!!**_


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